Half a million Afghan IDPs to get winter aid

KABUL (Pajhwok): The Ministry of Refugees and Repatriation and the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) have devised a joint plan of providing essential aid to half a million displaced people this winter.

Hafizullah Miakhel, media advisor to the Ministry of Refugees and Repatriation (MoRR), told Pajhwok Afghan News in an exclusive interview that around 47,000 families, comprised of nearly half a million people, were newly displaced nationwide this year.

He said the MoRR and UNHCR every year prepared a program for the uprooted families, but their this year’s plan required $8 million to meet the total cost estimated at $15 million.

He said they had so far received $7 million from donor countries and efforts were underway to obtain the remaining $8 million from other donor organizations.

According to this year’s winter strategy, each family will be assisted with various goods worth $200.

“We have the plan to assist 78,000 families, including internally displaced and destitute families,” he said, adding the aid process had been conducted in four eastern provinces and would be extended to other provinces as well.

The MoRR official said the repatriation process of Afghan refugees from Pakistan would be put on hold for three winter months and resumed in March 2018.

To a question, Miakhel said the Pakistani government deadline of allowing Afghan refugees to stay there would end on December 31.

However, he said trilateral and quadrilateral meetings would be held about the issue in Turkey in near future.

Representatives from Afghanistan, Pakistan, United Nations and Iran would attend the meetings, he said. Afghanistan would officially urge Pakistan to extend the stay of Afghan refugees in the neighboring country.